Kure Atoll - Human Exploration and Use

Human Exploration and Use

In the Hawaiian language the term Mokupāpapa was used for any flat island with reefs. The northwestern islands are associated with Kāne Milohai in Hawaiian mythology. The brother of Pele (creator of the islands) was left to stand guard for travelers. Before the mid-19th century, Kure Atoll was visited by several ships and given new names each time. Sometimes spelled Cure, its English name was for a Russian navigator who sited the atoll. It was officially named Kure Island in 1924 and then Kure Atoll in 1987. Many crews were stranded on Kure Atoll after being shipwrecked on the surrounding reefs and had to survive on the local seals, turtles, and birds. The shipwrecks remain on the reef today, including the USS Saginaw. Because of these incidents, King Kalākaua sent Colonel J. H. Boyd to Kure as his Special Commissioner. On September 20, 1886, he took possession of the island for the Hawaiian government. The King ordered that a crude house be built on the island, with tanks for holding water and provisions for any other unfortunates who might be cast away there. But the provisions were stolen within a year and the house soon fell into ruins.

Largely neglected for most of its history, during World War II Kure was routinely visited by U.S. Navy patrols from nearby Midway to ensure that the Japanese were not using it to refuel submarines or flying boats from submarine-tankers, for attacks elsewhere in the Hawaiian chain. During the Battle of Midway, a Japanese Nakajima B5N "Kate" bomber, operating from aircraft carrier Hiryū, piloted by Lieutenant Kikuchi Rokurō, and which had been involved in the initial Japanese attack on Midway's US installations, crash-landed near Kure after being damaged by US fighters. Once ashore, Lt. Kikuchi and the two other members of his crew (Warrant Officer Yumoto Noriyoshi and Petty Officer (1st Class) Narasaki Hironori) either refused capture and were killed, or else committed suicide when an American landing party tried to capture them.

Kure is located within a major current which washes up debris from the Great Pacific Garbage Patch, such as fishing nets and large numbers of cigarette lighters, on the island. These pose threats to the local animals, especially birds, whose skeletons are frequently found with plastic in the stomach cavity.

On October 16, 1998 at about 5:15am, the F/V Paradise Queen II ran aground on the eastern edge of Green Island of Kure Atoll. The vessel had been fishing for Hawaiian spiny lobsters (Panulirus marginatus) and slipper lobsters (Scyllarides squammosus). No major injuries or death occurred from the grounding.

From 1960 to 1992, a United States Coast Guard LORAN station was located on Green Island. A short coral runway was built on the island, but it is not in use and it is entirely unmaintained. Although there is no permanent human population, it is considered part of the City and County of Honolulu. It became a state wildlife sanctuary in 1981. Since 1993 the Hawaii Department of Land and Natural Resources and volunteers from the Kure Atoll Conservancy group have helped to restore the atoll to a more natural state. Jean-Michel Cousteau produced a video on a voyage to Kure which first aired in 2006.